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Monday, March 3, 2014

ἀστερίσκος

Some of the most interesting stories are those that hardly ever get written, for they exceed the power of the printed word and there can be no justice in lending them the inadequate semantic and semiotic devices they do not deserve. They are told once, and then a few times more, until they retreat into the silence of memory and stay there forever. Or maybe not forever, because one day another stranger will become a part of your life and make you recall, perhaps all too quickly, the things you thought you have already forgotten. Like a bookmark to a lost chapter.

The ineffable thrives in abstraction. When we try to hide what we want to say in plain sight, or negative space, metaphors gain their clarity. They stick out like sore truths, painful and unrelenting, demanding to be felt, reminding us that there is as much violence in language as there is language in violence. Which is why when we broke-up, it came naturally, as if it was inevitable: we were dragging the names of each other's families between the slurs and curses, and in the end we both felt defeated, having lost ourselves in the worst possible way we never thought we were capable of doing. For once we were monsters. For another we were our own casualties. But we have moved on.